“With all the investing we are doing in cars — the private investment fund bought shares in McLaren and Aston Martin — we are heading that way. Hopefully we can open and bring headquarters to Saudi Arabia or we hire people that can help us manufacture cars or technology, to create our own brands and have our own IPs [intellectual property rights].”
Motor racing is already a key part of Saudi Arabia’s aims to reduce its reliance on oil revenue. It has a long-term deal to host a Grand Prix in Jeddah, along with Formula E and Extreme E races, and a forthcoming MotoGP round. It is in the fourth year of a ten-year deal to host the Dakar, where Prince Khalid has frequently been seen talking to drivers and team bosses at stage starts and in the evenings at the main camp.
He said that he hoped to “close the deal soon” on a 2024 WRC round in Saudi Arabia. “Hopefully we can have an agreement with WRC which is fair for both of us and can announce it soon.”
But hosting races is just the start, revealed the Saudi official. “We have a 20-year programme that hopefully will launch at the end of ’23, early ’24,” he said. “Our aim is not just to host international events, we want to be involved more. We want to have engineers, we want to have mechanics, we want to build cars, we want to be creative.
Saudi says it wants to do more than just host events
Grand Prix Photo
“We really want to have a champion, a driver that can compete in the championship for Formula 1, who can compete in MotoGP. We are investing a lot in infrastructures, in building tracks in Saudi Arabia. We want to build academies so we can be more involved: Saudi teams with Saudi drivers or other drivers to race in Saudi teams. It’s still a long way ahead but hopefully by 2030, 2035, 2040 we can achieve our goals.”
Much appears to depend on the development of Neom, Saudi Arabia’s grandiose carbon-neutral future city containing twin mirrored skyscrapers that run horizontally for 100 miles.
